Crisp lettuce, juicy tomato slices and the soft, doughy bread in a sandwich is often accentuated by the crunch of its salty counterpart known as the potato chip. It’s hard to deny the lightweight satisfaction potato chips can give. The crunchiness often encourages – and sometimes justifies – the consumption of an entire bag.

Homemade baked potato chips can be a cheaper and healthier alternative than most packaged potato chips. To indulge in this crispy snack guilt-free, I decided to make my own.

This recipe was adapted from allrecipes.com

Homemade potato chips

Start to finish: 35 minutes

Servings: 4

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 potato, sliced paper thin

1 teaspoon salt

To attain the lightweight texture of a potato chip, thinly slice the potato. After slicing the potato into about one-centimeter-thick pieces, set aside and pour canola oil into a plastic bag. Place the potato slices into the well-oiled bag and, after sealing, shake the soon-to-be-salty delights around to thoroughly coat in greasy goodness.

Unseal bag and distribute the greased slices on a plate and microwave for four to 10 minutes, depending on microwave’s power. Remove slices from microwave once they have slightly browned and the edges have curled. Let slices cool for three minutes and then salt the chips as desired.

One serving size of Lay’s Baked Potato Chips is 120 calories, whereas one serving of these homemade potato chips is about 72 calories. Baked potato chips tend to contain less calories and sodium, which makes a bag of Lay’s Baked Potato Chips a healthier alternative as opposed to packaged chips, such as Lay’s Classic Potato Chips.

With fewer calories and more chips to crunch on, this homemade potato chips recipe enables you to keep that flow of empty calories coming by providing more servings from a single potato, which typically costs less than a dollar instead of purchasing a $4 bag of chips.

Having four times the amount of potato chips that a bag usually gives you means you’ll have enough chips to last the next couple sandwiches you plan on making in the future or even one if you can’t resist the temptation of these crunchy snacks.

Hope Roberts can be reached at [email protected]